


being with you makes the flame burn good

by fairytalegay



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytalegay/pseuds/fairytalegay
Summary: He only smokes after sex ("It's what you're supposed to do", Nigel tells him), or when Nigel is away. But then it isn't about the cigarettes, it's about the reason they feel like home. Adam thinks of Nigel's mouth, and stares at the yellowing wallpaper.
Relationships: Nigel (Charlie Countryman)/Adam Raki
Comments: 7
Kudos: 76





	being with you makes the flame burn good

**Author's Note:**

> very heavily inspired by the song i don't smoke by mitski. also it's 2am and i never planned on writing anything like this, my first spacedogs fic was supposed to be really fluffy and cute. this is not that.

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.

That's what Adam told Nigel when he first caught Nigel taking a drag from a cigarette on Adam's balcony. Nigel just laughed, and said that with the line of work he's in, it won't be the cigarettes that kill him.

The nicotine stains Nigel's fingertips yellow, and it should make Adam nauseous, but he can't find it in him to care. The acidic smell soon feels like home, and as a cigarette dangles carelessly from Nigel's fingers as they lie in bed, Adam picks it up and inhales. He barely coughs, and Nigel looks proud, and Adam feels like the sun.

He only smokes after sex ("It's what you're supposed to do", Nigel tells him), or when Nigel is away. But then it isn't about the cigarettes, it's about the reason they feel like home. Adam thinks of Nigel's mouth, and stares at the yellowing wallpaper.

Adam doesn't reference statistics when he catches Nigel cutting up white powder on his kitchen counter, he just picks up the book he had left and leaves. That night, Nigel whispers into his neck that he was just testing the merchandise. Adam points out that Nigel promised not to lie to him.

Nigel once told Adam that he was a mean man. Adam knew it was true, tucked it away with everything else. Nigel is only mean to Adam when business goes bad, he ends phonecalls in a rage and turns to Adam, streams of harsh Romanian cutting into him. Adam was always easy to pick on, he can't blame Nigel.

When Nigel calms down, he starts to cry, and Adam holds him and soothes him as Nigel apologises in every language he knows. Adam wipes his tears away and kisses him as a forgiveness.

Nigel offers him a rolled up leu one day, and Adam looks at the four lines on his coffee table. Two for each of them. Nigel teaches him how to do it, and Adam is a quick learner. Nigel's eyes darken, pupils blown for two reasons, and his fingers burn into Adam's skin. Adam wakes with bruises he fondly touches in the mirror.

The days when Nigel is away hurt more than the days when Nigel is mean. Adam goes through a pack of cigarettes for each day Nigel is gone, chainsmoking as he lies back on their bed, making out shapes in the mold on the ceiling. The one in the corner looks like a hand, if he squints.

There was a night when business went bad, worse than ever before. Nigel came home with bruised knuckles and a shirt coated in what Adam knows from his crime shows as arterial spray. Adam waited patiently for Nigel to be mean, but those words didn't come. Instead Nigel pulled him into the shower and they stood under the cold spray fully clothed, watching the water run red. 

Nigel tells Adam that he was put on earth for Nigel. Adam knows that's not how it works, he tells Nigel that, but Nigel insists that Adam is meant for him. So Adam lets Nigel call him  _ înger mic _ , and imagines that this will be forever.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry?


End file.
